Kaas - The Plateau of Flowers



Kaas - Heaven on Earth - Plateau of Flowers




Smithia hirsute





Senecio grahamii / bombayensis






Utricularia purpurascens






Senecio grahami







Murdannia lanuginosa







Pogostemon deccanensis





Id ?




Dipcadi montanum




Impatiens oppositifolia




Cloud Scape at Kaas




Kaas - Flower Scape




Plateau full of flowers




Sahyadris




Sanjjangad Fort and hovering Black Shouldered Kite




Running Barking Deer amidst bed of flowers




Moody Kaas




Micky in the Sky - Smithia hirsute




Smithia hirsute




Kaas - Mood of the morning




Impatiens oppositifolia - Earth full of flowers




Wild Brinjal flower and an interesting insect




Dipcadi montanum




Seeing this butterfly first time - ID help appreciated..




Lace of Flowers




Misty Morning




Play of Light




Flowers everywhere..




Utricularia Purpurascens - The center of attraction




Beautiful Mountain scapes on either side of Kaas plateau







With nice play of tones Kaas responds beautifully well to monotones...


Kaas in Monotones

















So far so good. But.....


Flowers and People in between..




Road to Mahabaleswar piercing through heart of flowers. Will Kaas survive ?




Future - Wind mills and flowers OR Only wind mills ?





Dr Sandeep Shrotri who is the president of the NGO Ranwata Society at Satara (Kaas is 25KM from Satara town) is a worried person today. Not only Kaas is heaven on earth, it is also home to several critically endagered species of plants, some of them are endemic to this region. This beautiful beds of flowers have been stamped on by thousands of "nature lovers" during flowering season. Natural splendor is making way to uncontrolled tourism - it is said that there is a proposal to 'develop' this region as hill station with an airport and broad roads. Wind mills have encroached on the plateau too. Dr Shrotri and his friends at Ranwata are doing their best to save this wonderful plateau of flowers - Kaas. In his own words (cover pages of his book on Kaas) -




Will they win over beuracracy and various other lobbies ? Only time will tell.

Acknowledgements

My sincere thanks to Adesh Shivkar who helped me lot - he shared all the information about Kaas, staying at Satara, travelling to and from Pune etc. But for Adesh I would not have made this trip. Sincere thanks to Adesh again ! Visit Adesh's site to see beautiful collection of images from Kaas.

One of the best thing Adesh did is introducing us to Dr Sandeep Shrotri at Satara town. Surgeon by profession, gentleman at heart, Dr Sandeep has passion for conservation of nature in general. Kaas appears to be his second home and he has genuine concerns about conservation of Kaas plateau. Interestingly Mrs Dr Shrotri too shares the same passion with her husband. Couple joined us for a few visits to Kaas and shared lots of information about wild flowers of Kaas and showed us different regions. My sincere thanks to Dr Shrotri, Mrs Shrotri and Milind Halbe for all their help.

Thanks to my friend Vivek Kale who shared a lots of very useful information and photo tips about Kaas. Visit his site to see his wonderful collection from Kaas!

Tips for Nature Photographers visiting Kaas







Kaas can be explored both from natural history perspective and artistic perspective. I was told we see different colored flower beds once every week to 10 days during flowering season (Sept/Oct). This time I had planned for a week long trip but returned two days early. I think Kaas needs about 3-4 visits during Sept/Oct with about 10 days gap. Those who stay close to Kaas are blessed !

Here are a few learnings from my trip which might help you as a nature photographer -

1. Carry your wide angle and macro lenses, extension tubes, tripod, polarizer and soft graduated neutral density filters (preferably 1-3 stop range rectangular filters which fits Cokin P holder). Flowering plants are small. You need tripod which can stay close to ground. Most often I ended up using my ground pod than my tripod. I think 35mm digital (including full frame) can't do justice to Kaas. If you can afford a medium format digital or have patience to use 4x5 large format..

2. Keep your long tele at home - you may not do justice to Kaas otherwise (unless you want to make some nice close ups of crested bunting).

3. Get a copy of Dr. Shrotri's book to look for different species of flowers found at Kaas. The flowers may be very very small in size. Some of the flowers you see above are of very small size.

4. Be prepared to make images in bad weather and in rain. Best light for photography may be bad light. Carry water-proof covers to protect your equipement from rain.

5. Stones are extremely slippery, be careful while walking on the plateau - help flowers, yourself and your equipments. Be very careful around edges of the plateau. Those places are very very scary and steep.

6. When sun shines you may want to protect your skin from sun burns !! I had nice sun burns..

7. Start early in the morning (about 40 min journey from Satara), be there around sunrise, stay there till sunset, you may notice some dramatic light late in the evening and during very early hours. Carry enough food both for breakfast as well as for lunch. Drive safely, some places are very steep and scary. See whether you can visit this place during week days.

8. Light changes very fast so is the white balance and color that gets rendered on your sensor. It is very common to see part of the frame is lit by sun light and rest in shadows (if you are using wide angle lenses). Exposure can get tricky. Set your camera to 14bit raw (if supported) else 12 bit raw. Bracket enough, carry enough CF cards.

9. It is very windy there. Tripod will help, you may want to keep the camera on continuous auto focus mode while doing your macro work.

10. Most important, see whether you can go there with some one who knows what is where on the Plateau ! We were very lucky to have Dr. Shrotri with us during some of our visits.

Thats all friends, this place is worth several visits - Plan to make a trip !!

If you have a word or two to share about this page please feel free to do this here on my blog on Kaas.


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